# TIP 1: sourced from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/253380/how-to-insert-text-at-beginning-of-a-multi-line-selection-in-vi-vim

The general pattern for search and replace is:

:s/search/replace/

Replaces the first occurrence of 'search' with 'replace' for current line

:s/search/replace/g

Replaces all occurrences of 'search' with 'replace' for current line, 'g' is short for 'global'

This command will replace each occurrence of 'search' with 'replace' for the current line only. The % is used to search over the whole file. To confirm each replacement interactively append a 'c' for confirm:

:%s/search/replace/c

Interactive confirm replacing 'search' with 'replace' for the entire file

Instead of the % character you can use a line number range (note that the '^' character is a special search character for the start of line):

:14,20s/^/#/

Inserts a '#' character at the start of lines 14-20

If you want to use another comment character (like //) then change your command delimiter:

:14,20s!^!//!

Inserts a '//' character sequence at the start of lines 14-20

Or you can always just escape the // characters like:

:14,20s/^/\/\//

Inserts a '//' character sequence at the start of lines 14-20

If you are not seeing line numbers in your editor, simply type the following

:set nu

# / TIP 1
